A husband muses about daily interactions with his wife and his dog during his recovery from brain surgery.

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Sunday, October 18, 2009

2nd Official Blog - The Head Crash

Using only my instincts, I have found writing with words has helped me heal from the surgery that took the tumor out of my head. It has made me focus on one thing at a time. When you write, you really must focus. It's always ONE THING you are trying to communicate, but it takes many minutes to craft that one thing. So you really cut everything else away. Everything. Focus just on one thing. Write. There is nothing more therapeutic for the mind than to focus on a single idea, uncomplicated. Write.

That said, the past two mornings have been exceedingly strange. Previously, my head literally hurt if I thought of two different things at once. Pain—serious physical pain—invaded my head if I thought of two competing ideas. (How can a lite beer both taste great AND be less filling, etc.). I knew to discard these multi-thoughts right away because my instinct to recoil from pain, dizziness or disorientation was immediate.

However, for the past two days I have experienced no such physical pain or headaches. Going between point A and point B is easy. Thinking of A, B, and C all at once is totally fine; I can skip between them effortlessly, "swifter than light," as I think William Lloyd Garrison wrote once on a prison wall.

So the past two mornings have been like when Harry Potter discovers he has magical powers. My thoughts don't HURT anymore. I can THINK of anything, easily making connections, and the freedom is liberating. With my body safely confined to the couch, I thought these mental exercises were refreshing, but the rewiring in my head did spiral out of control so quickly I almost wish Fibonacci could have been alive to see what it looks like to have his number series take a major blast through my head.

Both yesterday and today I have suffered a kind of mental explosion around 11am or noon. In the most basic way I can explain, this is what has happened:

My head wakes up at 5am and thinks a single thought. Then I pair that with another thought. Then those two thoughts multiply, then those multiply again and again ad infinitum for next few hours until my head explodes. It's a simple case of easing on an accelerator, stepping harder and harder increasingly because there is no resistance (and it feels fun), and then driving off a cliff. How have your mornings been recently? Mine have been real interesting.

Especially for MJ, who comes downstairs wondering why I am suddenly curled up on the couch in a fetal position crying my eyes out. And Noah, who even stops begging for green beans and comes over to lick my feet, the most devoted thing he ever does. I can't imagine it looks very good to them. As for me, I actually feel fine by then. I am back in a safe mode, my thoughts returned to ONE and feeling just a little overwhelmed, my heart pounding.

But it has happened twice now, so I know it is not just a blip in my recovery. As I get used to the the new wiring in my brain, I have spent all my energy looking for new light switches that turn ON. I have not searched yet for any emergency circuit breakers. Every thought begins as a spiral, like my favorite canon from Bach's "Musical Offering" where the voices keep transposing up and up into infinity.

My body has healed. My vital signs are fine. My brain is a new toy out of the box.

1 comment:

Did you know we can post comments here? Your brain is doing a wonderful but scary new dance. It's as if you have to learn the steps all over again. But I believe, with all my heart, that your re-wiring will lead to enhanced creativity as you learn to observe the world in a novel way. Writing about it all will definitely help the focus. As I've said before, you have many riveted fans.